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Smart HDR results different between Photomator and Photos app

Discuss Photomator and photo editing.

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2024-06-03 15:12:22

I just bought Photomator specifically for the Smart HDR feature. (I'm working on MacBook with a display that supports HDR.) And for the most part I'm quite impressed with the results, when I view them in Photomator itself: the images have more visible detail and a bit more pop in a way that looks pleasing and natural. However I'm having an issue with the feature when it comes to the Apple Photos app. If I use Photomator to edit an image in my Photos library, when the edits sync to Photos, the HDR results are too intense and bright. It looks as though Photos is taking the brightest point in the image and displaying it at the maximum brightness the display will allow. I can open the same image in Photomator and Photos side by side and the Photos version will be aggressively brighter.

A couple more notes. If I open the image in Pixelmator Pro, or even use the Pixelmator Pro widget in Photos, I see the Photomator (better) version. In Photomator, if I dial Highlights to 100%, the result appears identical to the Apple Photos version. (Which seems to support my idea that Apple Photos is displaying the brightest part of the image at the display's maximum brightness.) The same results seem to hold whether the image I'm editing is in my Apple Photos library as a JPEG or HEIC.

And there appear to be other differences, too. I have a photo where applying Smart HDR in Photomator causes the highlights to appear very yellow. In Apple Photos, the HDR effect is applied (at an intensity that's too great), but the highlights do not look yellow.

Finally, the only iOS device I have that supports HDR is the iPhone 13 Pro. When the edits propagate to that device, what I see appears to match the Photomator version (less aggressive HDR, yellow tinge in highlights of my test photo).

All of this is very confusing! And makes the Smart HDR features a bit useless at the moment, since the results vary among devices and what I see in my editing is not what I see in Mac Apple Photos. I think there are some bugs here that need looking into, but I'd also appreciate any advice.
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2024-06-03 20:17:13

Just adding that the situation across devices is even a little worse than I thought. Further experimentation reveals that the images that sync to iPhone aren't displaying as HDR at all. (There's one exception, but it's possible that I did that HDR conversion on the iPhone in the first place, which might be the difference?)

To sum up, the situation after using smart HDR on the Mac is this:
- In Photomator for Mac, images display beautifully.
- In Apple Photos for Mac, images display with brightest HDR parts too bright.
- In Photos for iPhone, images display as SDR (looking very washed out).
- In Photomator for iPhone, image display beautifully (equivalent to Photomator for Mac).

And, again, this applies equally to HEIC files and JPEG files, so it's not just a matter of some incompatibility between Apple HDR and JPEG (though some reading suggests that that could be part of the problem--which, at the very least, seems like it should trigger a warning).

However, finally, I can confirm that if I edit HDR in Photomator, export to HDR HEIC, and then import that into Apple Photos, the image will show correctly on all devices. That tells me that HDR editing is at least workable, but it would be really lovely if it were possible to do that editing in place. Other than sheer inconvenience, one problem with the export-import cycle is that it loses all saved edits, so I can't continue to edit.

So there's clearly something about the way Photomator is writing the HDR data that isn't compatible with how Apple handles things. Could we get some more info?
User avatar

2024-08-04 17:29:44

Yes, I noticed the same thing. Curious if there is a solution or at least some remarks by the team.
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2024-08-05 23:53:47

The issue lies with how Photomator is handling HDR. It treats HDR as more akin to video where the whole image is tone mapped to HDR. Vs apple which treats an image as SDR and adds a subtle HDR layer to add the additional HDR when viewed in an HDR display. Problem is the way Photomator is handling HDR, is that it relies on the HDR to show properly and when the HDR is removed, you get a washed out image.
Here some examples
Image
This is a HDR with the HDR layer removed. Doesn’t look bad.
I was able extract the HDR layer. And this is what it looks like.
Image
The darker the areas will subtly darken the image and the bright areas was subtly Brighten areas in HDR viewing giving that glow look. With it being mostly gray, it doesn’t do much. And just add a little sparkle to the SDR image underneath.

Now here’s how Pixelmator handles HDR. From the same image saved from Photomator with no edits in HDR mode
First, let’s look at the HDR layer.
Image
Talk about some major contrast. And to make up for that, it has to take the SDR layer and compensate for the major contrast to HDR layer which, if you pay attention, the clouds have disappeared because the HDR layer is now required for them to reappear. See
Image
now in viewed on my HDR screens like my iPhone, both photos look pretty much identical, but when viewed on an SDR display, you could see where the issue lies, that’s why many of us are having issues with the HDR mode in Photomator
User avatar

2024-09-15 11:36:31

I have encountered the same issue. After editing the HDR photo in Photomator, the HDR image displayed in Photomator appears normal; however, when viewing the photo in Apple's photo album, the bright areas are overly exposed
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2024-09-23 17:10:49

I noticed the same issue, I hope that this will be fixed soon!
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2024-10-16 06:50:26

Unfortunately there has been silence on this topic...
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2024-10-18 10:11:41

Looking forward to some resolution to this too.